Multi Gigabit wireless spec finalized

Posted December 10, 2009 - 14:49

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig), the outfit promoting the adoption of 60 GHz wireless technology, has announced the completion of its unified wireless standard.

WiGig enables high performance wireless display and audio and provides data transfer rates more than 10 times faster than today's wireless LANs, while supporting backward compatibility with existing Wi?Fi devices. The completed specification is now ready for member review and is anticipated to be made available to WiGig adopter members in Q1 2010.

"When we launched the WiGig Alliance in May, we announced our plan to complete the industry's first unified 60 GHz specification by Q4 2009, and we are proud to deliver on this promise to the industry," said Doctor Ali Sadri, president and chairman of the Wireless Gigabit Alliance.

"We're rapidly paving the way for the introduction of the next generation of high?performance wireless products – PCs, mobile handsets, TVs and displays, Blu?ray disc players, digital cameras and many more."

The WiGig version 1.0 draft spec supports data transmission rates up to 7 Gbps – more than ten times faster than 802.11n. It's also backward compatible with the IEEE 802.11 standard and its physical layer enables both low power and the high performance WiGig devices.

Protocol adaptation layers are being developed to support specific system interfaces including data buses for PC peripherals and display interfaces for HDTVs, monitors and projectors, along with support for beamforming, enabling robust communication at distances beyond 10 meters.

"WiGig has reached a milestone with the completion of its specification as promised by year end, demonstrating the organization's commitment to deliver," said Craig Mathias, a Principal with the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group. "By complementing Wi-Fi and enabling multi-gigabit speeds, the versatile specification is a very significant achievement on the road to the next generation of wireless LAN products."

"NVIDIA recognizes the general market trend toward wire?free interfaces. Today, display interfaces are at an inflection point where the next generation solutions will feature wireless display connections for PCs, game consoles, notebooks and mobile devices with PC monitors and TVs," said Devang Sachdev, Technology Marketing Manager at NVIDIA and WiGig Board Member.